A SENIOR doctor is accused of putting the lives of patients in danger after he deliberately switched off anaesthetic machines during surgery to test his trainees.

Consultant anaesthetist James Murphy, 49, switched off the power supply and told his unsuspecting charges he was going for a coffee break before leaving the operating theatre to let them spot his deliberate mistake.

A medical tribunal was told that one specialist registrar was left to manually ventilate an anaesthetised patient with emergency oxygen supplies when his machine shut down without any back-up battery.

It later emerged none of the patients on the operating table at Liverpool's Cardiothoracic Centre during the test had given their consent prior to surgery.

The General Medical Council fitness to practice panel heard how patients could have been starved of oxygen or even began to experience sensation during surgery as a result of the stunt.

Dr Murphy denies misconduct.

Timothy Smith, for the GMC, told the panel the allegations related to "unusual and orthodox and dangerous" training procedures Murphy practised with four registrars.

In May 2005, fifth year registrar, Dr Hoo Kee Tsang was accompanied by Murphy in a cardiac bypass.

The panel heard how the anaesthetic machine being used had monitors showing levels of gas and oxygen given to the patient. Some machines were said to have back-up batteries to supply electricity in the event of a power failure.

Mr Smith said that at some point Dr Murphy told Dr Tsang that he was leaving the theatre in order to get a coffee.

He said: "As he left the theatre Dr Murphy switched off the equipment at the mains.

"The consequence of that was that the equipment then shut down and the internal alarm sounded.

"The automatic gas delivery systems stopped.

"Dr Murphy revealed he had disconnected the power supply in order to test Dr Tsang.”

The panel heard Dr Murphy had tested other registrars in a similar way.

Mr Smith said: "This training exercise involved the deliberate creation of a critical incident which, if allowed to continue unchecked would or could result in harm to the patients.

"It is the GMC's case that there was no need at all for thistype of exercise to have been undertaken."